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Bruce, Christine S. and Pham, Binh L. and Stoodley, Ian D. (2005) The collective consciousness of information technology research. Research students' ways of seeing information technology research: its objects and territories.
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THE COLLECTIVE CONSCIOUSNESS OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY RESEARCH. RESEARCH STUDENTS’ WAYS OF SEEING INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY RESEARCH: ITS OBJECTS AND TERRITORIES
Christine Bruce, Binh Pham, Ian Stoodley Queensland University of Technology June 2005
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INTRODUCTION.........................................................................................................................2 BACKGROUND ......................................................................................................................................2 AIM ......................................................................................................................................................3 PARTICIPANTS ......................................................................................................................................3 DATA COLLECTION ...............................................................................................................................4 ANALYSIS .............................................................................................................................................4
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RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN THE CATEGORIES..............................................................5
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CATEGORIES..............................................................................................................................7 THE ENHANCEMENT GROUP .................................................................................................................7 Category 1: Software development .................................................................................................7 Category 2: Information practice ...................................................................................................8 Category 3: Human-technology interaction ...................................................................................9 Category 4: Applications to other disciplines...............................................................................10 Category 5: Impact .......................................................................................................................11 THE AGENCY GROUP ..........................................................................................................................12 Category 6: Sanctioned.................................................................................................................12 Category 7: Constructed...............................................................................................................13
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DISCUSSION ..............................................................................................................................14 COMPARISON WITH ACADEMICS’ VIEWS ............................................................................................14 Differences ....................................................................................................................................14 Impact on humans .........................................................................................................................15 Research........................................................................................................................................15 OTHER OBSERVATIONS .......................................................................................................................16
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BIBLIOGRAPHY .......................................................................................................................17
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1 Introduction Background The collective consciousness of a research group is characterised by their shared understandings of their research object or territory (Bowden and Marton 1998, p.196). Information technology (IT) research is a relatively new field that has been subject to rapid expansion, diversification and fragmentation. Since the establishment of IT research, Information Systems (IS) and Computer Science (CS) researchers, for example, have come to focus on very different territories. They investigate areas as diverse as data mining, cryptography, database architecture, multi-media, e-commerce, information management and information science. The focus of CS researchers on technical issues, formal methods and abstract thinking has been broadened to encompass a wide range of issues related to the use of computer technologies, for example management of information systems and social impact, that are usually the domain of IS researchers. New opportunities for multidisciplinary research are also emerging, addressing issues which may be seen as belonging to, for example, life-science, education, management and art, all of which has led to the development of different perceptions, amongst IT researchers of what constitutes significant and valuable research. Essentially IT researchers’ understandings of the research domain continue to transform, and to fragment, in order to account for users’ diverse needs. Although the general aim is still to seek better methods, systems and performance, urgent problems include how to transform work practices and recognise opportunities for innovation in other sectors such as business, science, engineering and government. New technologies have stimulated a surge of new approaches for development in industries such as electronic publishing and remote sensing for mining and agriculture. New industries, markets and employment patterns have emerged. Political and economic pressures are forcing university researchers to adopt a more outward-looking attitude, which encourages closer interaction and collaboration with industry and community. Investigating the problems and issues of these new frontiers ideally requires collaboration between different groups of IT researchers. While new research areas have been created to cope with such demands, progress is generally deterred by disagreement, conflict, and a general lack of cooperation between the different research groups. One of the primary causes of this conflict is different views of the territories of IT research. Cooperation and collaboration are further confounded by the adoption of research approaches from across a range of theoretical foundations. Thus, although IT researchers are commonly focussed on the world of information technology, the research interests of the various subgroups rarely intersect. Their differences are not only about what research object it is appropriate to investigate, but also about how such investigations should be conducted. Consequently, joint projects between the different groups and interdisciplinary research are comparatively rare. This threat of fragmentation is serious internationally and particularly in Australia. Australia ‘lacks the cohort of experienced IT researchers capable of tackling long term issues’ (Goldsworthy 1997, p.88) and there is much fragmentation of funding mechanisms in Australia for IT research (Sara 1998, p. 75). A close investigation of the varying ways of seeing IT research, its objects and territories is needed, to assist in moving towards as well as in reengineering, a shared understanding of the collective endeavour. Two complementary studies have already been completed to address this problem. These studies investigated ways of seeing the significance and value of IT research and different ways of seeing IT research objects and territories. Combined, the Collective Consciousness projects have attracted $48,000 in ARC and QUT grant funding. Their findings have been presented in three technical reports (Bruce, Pham and Stoodley 2002a,b,c), one refereed conference paper (Pham, Bruce and Stoodley 2002), one un-refereed conference paper (Bruce and Pham 2001) and two journal articles (Bruce, Pham and Stoodley 2004; Pham, Bruce and Stoodley 2005, in press). Completion of these studies has positioned the research team to investigate the perceptions of specific sub groups of IT researchers, in this case research students. Intellectual precursors to this study include investigations from two lines of research: comparative analyses of the IT domain and investigation of different ways of seeing the world, including research. So far, most investigations which include some comparative analysis of the information technology domain have been in three main categories: social impact (e.g. Williams and Edge 1996; Sahay 1997), education (AVCC 1996; Bruce 1996; Pham 1997), and economic development (Roche 1996). Little effort has been focussed on the comparative analysis of different IT research areas, with the exception of Simon (1999) and Hirscheim et al (1996); the latter organises the sub-discipline of information __________________________________________________________________________________ Research Student Analysis Final.doc 2 30/06/2005
systems research into intellectual territories, imposing organising structures on the field rather than seeking them from within the life-world experiences of researchers as will be done in this study. The second line of research has an extensive history of uncovering variation in ways of seeing phenomena in the world around us (Marton and Booth 1997; Bowden and Marton 1998). While to date most of these investigations have been centred on student learning, researchers are now beginning to investigate ways of seeing research (Brew 1998; Kiley 2000) as well as attending to researchers’ collective consciousness (Bowden and Marton 1998, Bruce 2000).
Aim The aim of the project reported here was to investigate dimensions of the collective consciousness of information technology (IT) research. In particular, the study explored how research students see: •
research, and particularly IT research;
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the information technology research field, or territory. What are the features of the field? What are its boundaries?; and
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the information technology research object. How do IT researchers see the ‘things’ underpinning their research? How do they collectively constitute or ‘shape’ the object of IT research? What kinds of shared understandings do they have of their research object? How do their understandings differ?
Clear understanding of the different ways of seeing these facets of IT research is essential to the development of the field. IT researchers need insights into the commonalities and complementarities of their endeavour. These commonalities and complementarities essentially form the basis of IT researchers’ collective competence and create the distinctive culture of IT research. The significance of this study thus resides in its ability to: •
illuminate the expanding and changing nature of IT research as perceived by neophyte researchers;
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contribute to a systematic framework for research development strategies for novice as well as more experienced researchers;
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provide a point of comparison with other investigations of IT researchers’ collective consciousness; and
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reveal the ongoing contribution of neophytes to the emerging field.
The primary outcome from this study is a framework comprising a set of categories, each of which represents significant differences in IT research students’ ways of seeing IT research, its objects and territories. These categories represent different ways of seeing IT research from a broad perspective, without directly associating them with specific disciplines or sub-disciplines. The intention is not to classify specific research students or groups of students, but rather to identify different ways of thinking that may change with the context in which they work. This allows researchers from the various groups to interact with the framework freely. Working with a diverse range of research students ensured significant variation was identified.
Participants Research students enrolled in Queensland University of Technology Faculty of Information Technology higher degrees were invited to participate in this project - eighteen students responded. Half were male and half female. Most participants were under 40 years of age. They represented a range of sub-disciplines (see Table 1 below). Their research experience varied from novice to advanced. Most of them were full-time students.
Table 1 Participants Gender M
F
